As part of our re-invigorated relationship with the General Aviation community, NATS have decided to participate in the debate and discussion on the General Aviation forums by joining as a named position, in this case Jonathan Smith, NATS Infringements Lead. We hope that our occasional contribution to relevant threads will be both informative and constructive. In exchange, our participation allows us to formally understand, gauge and learn from the views of the many members of the GA community that contribute to the forums and may otherwise be difficult to communicate with.
One area of interest, which has proven very difficult to gather reliable data, is related to transponder use by the GA community. NATS have discussed recently at the Airspace Infringement Working Group and as a member of the General Aviation Safety Council why transponder equipped aircraft continue to operate without switching the transponder on or without selecting the altitude (Mode C) function when fitted. We know from infringement investigation reports that a percentage of infringing pilots have chosen either deliberately or mistakenly to not fully utilise the transponder fitted to their aircraft. Trying to understand and measure the actual scale of this issue and the reasons behind it, has proven hard to achieve from traditional sources of data.
Please would you consider spending a few minutes (There are maximum of 9 questions - dependant on answers given) contributing to the following
electronic questionnaire to help us to better understand the issue?
GA Pilot Transponder Survey
If you choose to help us in gathering this data, you should also be aware of the following;
The survey will close at 23:45pm on the 4th Feb 2010 or when 1,000 responses have been received if before the deadline date.
The survey won’t accept more than one response from the same computer.
Please be as honest as possible and note that there is an opportunity for you to provide reasons for your answers.
You should answer all questions based on the GA aircraft that you fly most frequently.
It is an informal survey by NATS and the responses will be treated anonymously. This is our first attempt at conducting a survey amongst the GA community in this way, so if we haven't got our questioning or methodology perfect, we are more than happy to hear from you.
Providing our first attempt runs smoothly we will, of course, share our findings via the forums.
Finally, we welcome your contribution and look forward to hearing your point of view.